Post COVID19 – The new reality for personal insurance

While preparing for the post-COVID-19 world, insurance enterprises have already begun spinning the wheel that will take them far into the future. While the components will differ depending on the category of insurance – Property and Casualty, Commercial, Life  & Health, and Personal, as the evolving market trends, and shift in customer demands are quite different. There is much for the insurers to do, starting with digital transformation, proving to the world that remote insurance sales are the way ahead. 

From the other side of the fence, COVID 19 was the wake-up call for many. Individuals who did not invest in insurance were worried about how easy it would be to purchase one now, considering how COVID has altered the way businesses are reaching out to customers. There were quite a few questions that arose in their minds,

1. How to assess the insurance policies available out there and do a comparative study without meeting insurers face to face?
2. How would they submit supporting documents?
3. What about the verification and authentication process?
4. Would there be a way to understand the insurance purchase policy, and keep track of progress?
5. How does one submit claims?
6. How long would it take for claims to be cleared and what about documentation? 
7. What about data safety and security?
8. Above all, will the insurance premium be higher because of the entire COVID situation? 

There are quite a few insurance companies that have come up with solutions to help individuals tide over the challenges and purchase a policy. We shall look at the various elements that go into Personal Insurance in this post.

We have divided the content into three categories,

Activities	Changes to be made	Areas of improvement/updates
Marketing: Creating marketing campaigns and boosting sales along with customer retention, through an increased customer interaction & engagement	Increased awareness of the marketing cost and returns is essential. What would be the cost of the marketing campaign going forward? What would insurers need to drive sales? How to position the  products Should we offer discounts on the premiums?	Shift the messaging of the campaigns and product positioning to customer-centric. Switch to multi-access model to offer high levels of experience   Look at different digital platforms to reach out to customers
Product Development: Understanding customer behaviour, gaining insight and developing new products	The entire work from home norm leads to a change in customer behaviour. Companies need to innovate and draw new products to offer. The policies are around usage-based data and based on customer behaviour. This includes auto, home and travel insurance.	The need of the hour is usage-based policies, making changes to policies based on a shift in behaviour with reference to automobiles [ since there is likely to be reduced usage]. Increase digital sales and solutions to simplify the process.
Distribution & Sales:Studying the market, understanding evolving customer demands & offer better products & services	Continue adopting the same digital sales solutions into the future as well as keeping the customer as the focus. Insurers should focus on reaching out to customers based on their convenience  Look for new opportunities	Evaluate and create a shift in the distribution suite to suit the evolving customer demands.   Strengthen the digital platforms, and mediums used for sales  Develop and implement new digital solutions, moving away from paper-based processes.   Create a new distribution model that will address current challenges and integrated automation and technology into systems.
Underwriting: Gain insight into customers to analyse risk profiles & premium coverage pricing	Pricing takes precedence, and early detection and alerts will help going forward.  Underwriting will become more data-driven.  Customers are open to sharing personal usage data, through IoT and connected wearables.   Improve underwriting abilities using insights gathered from various data sources.  Premium coverage will be computed based on usage, giving customers possibilities  of discounts	Offer a streamlined process from quote computation to actual purchase.   Utilise automation and other tools to study the captured data [auto & home sensors]  Analyse the risk profiles and pricing models forusage-based products
Claims management:Redefining the claims process, offer a seamless process & faster claim settlement.	Claims settlement via digital platforms willbe the new norm Insurers need to adopt automation and RPA in resolving claims faster.  Customers will be able to submit claims,  upload documents and follow-through in real-time  Automation will reduce frauds and other discrepancies in claims submitted, thereby shortening the processing time.	Think of the changes that are required from the customer point of view. Automation, digital solutions is the way forward to ensure the claims process is streamlined and smooth.  Finally, claims will become a self-service model.

COVID-19 has brought a paradigm shift in both business and people’s mindset. The pandemic has led to increased awareness about health insurance, and how people need to purchase insurance policy not just for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. If 10% were familiar with insurance coverage pre-COVID, the number is now around 57% [based on a survey by a private-sector health insurance company].

At Neutrinos, we have been at the forefront of this digital transformation, and have introduced the Digital Insurance Sales. Combined with our strong distribution suite and technology solutions, this will give the insurers all they need to continue with conversations and sales.

The Neutrinos Distribution suite is an end-to-end distribution solution that helps insurers leverage best-in-class technologies to enable a seamless experience for both the insurer and the customer. From Road Shows to Pre-Sales, from Lead Management to Financial needs analysis and EPOS, we provide customers with the means to make the path to purchase, one that is truly seamless.
The Neutrinos Digital Insurance Sales Suite offers Lead Generation & Management, AI-based Sales Management Solution, Intelligent Financial Needs Analysis, Remote Workflow based Signature Solution, SMART point of Sales Solution and Adviser Servicing/Products Solution. Apart from these, there is a dashboard to track policies in real-time and access to digital platforms to stay connected with the customer.  We would love to connect and take you through our Digital Insurance Sales Suite.